The Shadow of Death
by Cainwen the Warrior
Summary: Weeks after Common Ground, John has some startling and horrifying revelations about the wraith who saved him. Sequel to You Do Not Know.
1. The Valley

**That Good Night**

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Cainwen: Hi everyone! Hope you enjoy this interlude with our favorite flyboy and scottish doctor. There is some **Disturbing material. Sensitive readers beware**. Please Review

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John Sheppard had been seen running almost obsessively all over Atlantis in the past weeks. Not that this was terribly surprising. He had escaped from Kolya with a wraith named Cullough, gone to a planet, hallucinated and shot his friends, and was dreaming the memories of the aforementioned wraith. That was a lot for anyone to take in a few weeks. 

But today, he wasn't running along every catwalk, unused corridor and sparcly populated balcony in the city. Instead, he was sitting quietly on top of a tower in the southeast pier, gazing out at the ocean.

The fact that he hadn't stop in to see Rodney and Teyla in the infirmary, or met with Ronon to run was reason enough for Dr. Becket to coming looking for his second-most accident prone patient. The fact that no one could reach the flyboy on his radio was enough reason for Zelenka to use the internal sensors to find Sheppard for Becket.

And now Becket was standing behind Sheppard, watching, waiting to see if Sheppard would realize he was not alone.

"Hey Doc," he said tiredly, sadly.

"Hello Major," the Scot replied. "Wha' are yoo doing oop here?"

"Thinking" came the one word reply.

"Oh...what aboot?"

Sheppard turned around, and stared intently at Carson for a moment. "Carson, you ever want to die? I mean, really want to end it?"

Oh dear, he's feeling guilty, suicidal, better call Kate, the doctor immediately thought and reached for his earpiece.

"No no doc," Sheppard said, "Not me. Cullough."

"Cullough? The wraith?" Becket repeated, confused and sat down beside Sheppard.

"Yeah," the pilot replied distractedly. "It just hit me yesterday when I was running along the catwalks why he laughed before I stunned him. You know. It was like the dreams I have, but I was awake, except it was just raw emotion," Sheppard looked sharply at Carson. "He was _hoping_ I'd kill him. The whole time, he was waiting till you all showed up and killed him...That's why he didn't put up a fight," he finished quietly.

Carson nodded slowly. "And yoo felt what he was feeling? Tha' desire to die?"

Sheppard chewed at the inside of his check and nodded. They were both silent for a moment.

"It was terrible," John finally said. "There was so much guilt and sadness and...self-hatred. He thinks of himself as a murderer, a torturer, a criminal derserving death."

The doctor studied his friend's face for a moment. "But yoo don't?"

John paused, then shook his head slowly. "No, I don't. I mean, yes, he fed on me, and I know I wasn't the first, but from everything he's showed me, it's as though he would rather have slit his own throat than feed on me or anyone else who didn't want to die."

Carson nodded again. John had shared with him the memories that Cullough had given him, included the memory of the feeding. Despite his initial revulsion at the mere thought at a feeding, after some thought, he had admit that it seemed to actually be a great kindness. Even the most advanced medicine can't cure every ill, and certainly not old age. A kind, quiet death after you were sure you had said goodbye to all you loved ones had a kind of quiet beauty to it.

"There was just such...a sorrow. He's been carrying so much guilt and grief for so many years... He'd been trying to die for centuries. He'd walked into Genii territory _trying_ to get shot. He'd figured they'd shoot a lone wraith on sight. Instead, some brilliant, sadistic commander a couple of centuries ago realized what a great torture device a wraith would make. Just the threat of him would be enough to make most people give into his demands."

John locked eyes with Carson, trying to communicate more intensely what he was saying. "He'd slit his wrists--that's why they put the guards on his arms. He'd try to strangle himself with his chains--that why they put them behind him and didn't chain him to the wall. He tried to starve himself, refuse to feed. They put his hand on a person's chest and stabbed him--feeding was an autonomic response under those circumstances. He provoked them, hoping they'd go to far, but every time they would drag him back."

Sheppard, looked down quickly, and then out to sea. "He was waiting to die. He wanted that blast from Ronon's ray gun to be the last thing he felt in this life... He was terribly sad when he woke up again," he finished quietly.

TBC


	2. All My Pretty Chickens and Their Dam?

All My Pretty Chicken's And Their Dam?

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ROSS. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd.  
MALCOLM. Merciful heaven!  
What, man! Ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;  
Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak  
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.  
MACDUFF. My children too?  
ROSS. Wife, children, servants, all  
That could be found.  
MACDUFF. And I must be from thence!  
My wife kill'd too?  
ROSS. I have said.  
MALCOLM. Be comforted.  
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,  
To cure this deadly grief.  
MACDUFF. He has no children. All my pretty ones?  
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?  
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam  
At one fell swoop?  
MALCOLM. Dispute it like a man.  
MACDUFF. I shall do so,  
But I must also feel it as a man.  
I cannot but remember such things were  
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,  
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,  
They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,  
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,  
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now! (Shakespeare, MacBeth IV, iii)

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Cainwen: Okay, **REALLY DISTURBING CHAPTER!!! **I have no clue how my mind came up with it. Blame them (Points to wraith over shoulder)

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A few nights later, Carson was dozing on the cot in his office. He probably should have gone to his room to sleep, but somehow if there were a patient in his infirmary, he just couldn't leave. 

The sound of someone trying to get into his locked medicine cabinet woke him with a start. Quickly but blearily, he stumbled out of his office, furiously rubbing the sleep from his eyes to see John Sheppard trying to break into the cabinet with a look of pained desperation etched into his face.

"Colonal Sheppard? Just wha' is it yoo think yoor doin'?" the irate and exhausted Scot asked with a similar tone of voice to a school marm as he pulled the younger man off the lock. Sheppard looked at him with the look of one who has seen something indescribably horrible, and now was filled with a wild desperation.

"I know why he wanted to die," John rasped quietly.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Thair noo," Becket said soothingly as he set a large mug of tea in front of John. They had moved to Carson's quaters, which as much as possible in the blue crystaline room had been decorated and set up as a warm Scottish flat, with browns, plaids, lots of stone and wood. "Drink soom o' tha', and _then_ tell me all aboot it."

Sheppard, who was shivering despite the warmth of the room and the warm blanket which the Doctor had drapped over his shoulders, wrapped his trembling hands around the homey clay mug and took a sip before choking slightly. "Scotch?!" he gasped.

Carson smiled. "Aye, good Scottish whiskey. Mother sent me a case last time the Daedelus made a run. Ah'm not sure how she got it through though."

"You spike your tea?!"

"Thair air a lot o' cold, wet nights in Scotland lad," Carson told him before taking a sip himself.

John gave the older man his crooked smile and took another, more cautious taste of his whiskey-tea.

Several minutes passed with both men saying nothing, both simply enjoying their tea and the two-fold warmth it sent coursing through his body.

Carson watched the younger man over the rim of his mug. John seemed to be in shock. He was trembling violently, and every so often would scrub at his eyes with his hand as though trying to erase what they had seen.

"John?" Carson ventured gently. "What did you see?"

Sheppard looked up at him sharply, and his face was once more contorted with horror.

"They killed his children Carson. 22 children dead! Stabbed, tortured, fed on," Sheppard choked out. "Out of 23 children, 22 dead, one before she was even born, and another in locked in stasis before her first birthday because she would have been murdered. All because those _bitches_ of queens wanted power!" he spat out and stared into the depths of his mug. Becket remained silent. He knew John had to tell him in his own time.

"They made him watch…the soldiers of one of the queens. Five of them held him back while the slit the throat of one of his sons, Amhalghaidh, and while he was weeping over him, they stabbed Durhan," Sheppard locked eyes with Becket, his eyes blazing fierce anger. "He was _five_, Carson. _Five_. And those sons of bitches stabbed him with a poisoned blade. He had to watch his five-year-old son die for a week while his wife desperately healed his son again and again and again, only to have the wound reopen over and over and over!"

Sheppard stood up suddenly and dropped his mug, which shattered on the floor, sending the dregs of tea cascading over the wool rug. He paced furiously back and forth, his bare feet slapping angrily on the floor.

"They _had_ to give in Doc. They wanted to fight. They didn't want to live under the queen. But they had to. It was their only hope of saving their children. Besides," he growled, "They hadn't perfected the drone yet and the queen had to let her soldiers get all their pent up sexual energies _somehow_, since only _she_ in the hive could mate."

Carson grimaced. He understood all too clearly what Sheppard was implying. Cullough and Seàrlaid, if he remembered correctly, alone had twelve daughters, not including the unborn child.

"Dead, Carson. In one day, he had to bury five children. Then he had to bury his youngest son a week later, just before they were taken to the queen's hive. Stupid murdering bitch!" he screamed and punched the nearest wall. Carson heard a sharp crack, which he was sure was at least one of John's fingers, but Sheppard didn't seem to notice. His pacing grew more wrathful as he continued. "Every day, she would order Cullough away from his family to do something—fix an engine, cull a village, go along on one of her damn brute squads—and everyday he would come back, and another daughter was missing, no one knew where. He refused to go, and they stunned him, dragged him along anyway. His sons were killed because they asked questions, refused to obey.

"One day, Cullough came back and," John's voice cracked, and he seemed on the brink of tears in his horror and fury at what he could clearly see in his mind's eye.

"One day, he came back and found Seàrlaid's body in the middle of their bedroom. Sucked dry. One hand on her belly, the other broken off, lying on the floor—she had been gripping something when she had been sucked to a husk," he spat; his face was pale and sweaty. Carson guided the trembling colonel to the bathroom and closed the door. He could hear Sheppard retching for several minutes. He poured him another mug of whiskey and tea, waiting patiently for the fit to be over.

It was nearly ten minutes before Sheppard emerged, still pale and trembling, but noticeably calmer. Dr. Becket led him to the sofa and handed him the new mug before wrapping the shivering pilot in a quilt.

"Drink this lad," he murmured, guiding the mug to John's lips. He drank, and sat quietly for a few moments before continuing.

"It broke him, Doc. He and Seàrlaid were like one person in two bodies. They couldn't stand being apart for more than a few days. He felt like his heart had been torn out and burned," he whispered. "Gilleasbachan blamed his father, and Cullough blamed himself. Gilleasbachan was the last child besides his infant daughter, Mairghread, alive. They were able to get her to a Suleviae protected planet and hide her in a stasis pod before the queen found out she was there…

"But Gilleasbachan went crazy. He was so angry, and grieving for his whole family. The only thing that had held him back was his little sister…"

John sighed, and looked up at Carson with exhausted eyes. "He tried to kill the queen. But her guards caught him….Cullough never saw him again."

Becket nodded understandingly. "Aer friend has carried a lot o' grief faer many yaers," he said quietly.

John put down his empty mug, and stared at his hands. "He wanted to go home," he whispered so quietly Carson had to lean in to hear. "That night, he just wanted to go home. He just wanted to be with his family again. He's missed 'em for so long; he's been hurtin' for so long…"

Tears began to stream quietly down Sheppard's face. Carson had never seen him cry except in pain, but he, and perhaps only he out of all of Atlantis, could imagine what Sheppard was experiencing. Only Carson had had such a hard and difficult relationship with certain wraith.

Dr. Becket rose silently and went to his dresser. He pulled out a clean cotton handkerchief and handed it to Sheppard without saying a word. John took it, and continued to weep quietly for a few more moments. Becket knew that this was exactly what Sheppard needed, just as surely as he knew that he would never tell anyone about it.

When his tears were over, Sheppard was calm once more but exhausted beyond measure. Dr. Becket guided him to lie down on the sofa, and carefully pulled another quilt and afghan his mother had made over his friend and patient. He mentally dimmed the lights in his apartment before settling himself in one of the large armchairs. He expected John would sleep through the rest of the night, but if Sheppard needed him, he'd be nearby at least.

TBC


	3. Epilogue

**A Second Chance**

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Becket awoke sometime in the early dawn to someone shaking him gently but insistently.

"Hmm? Wha'? Wha' is it?" he mumbled as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. When he finally opened them, he saw Sheppard sitting on the coffee table in front of him, his eyes glowing with a mix of excitement and newfound purpose.

"We gotta save her, Carson," Sheppard whispered loudly, the thrill of a new mission clear in his voice.

"Save who lad?" the poor doctor mumbled blearily, still trying to pull his world together.

"Mairghread," Sheppard said, clearly stating the obvious. "Cullough wants us to save her."

"Why would…"

"Why would we do what a wraith wants? Because in this case it works to our advantage," Sheppard explained rapidly. "She's still a baby. She'd grow up _real_ fast once she's not in stasis, but we'd have a chance to raise her, gain her trust, become her family. Carson," Sheppard said sharply, "She has all the knowledge of a 18,000 year old wraith. And Cullough has told her we're coming, that she's supposed to listen to us. Think about it!"

Carson was thinking about it. He was thinking about all the horrors he might be forced to put the child through.

Sheppard read in the doctor's eyes what he was thinking. "Carson," he said more gently, "We can save her. A chance to…atone for Michael. A second chance. Will you help her for Ellia?"

Carson nodded. "For Ellia."

TBC

Cainwen: Hehe!!! Now you have to keep coming back to see when they start out! In the mean time, go read and review "A Mother's Love" and "A Father's Love".


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